If, during this Australian federal election campaign I hear one more politician’s deceptive spin on why tax cuts are more necessary than money and incentives for the environment to curb climate change, the skin on my already sceptical hide will become doubly thick and I will become irreversibly afflicted with GOMS—grumpy old man syndrome.
My consistent saviour in all this negativity, the life line that never fails to rescue me from depressive anger, the soothing ointment that bathes my wounds is this: the marvel of the natural world.
Watching dual blossoms of wafer thin yellow petals emerge from a thorny, tough old cactus is enough to both kill me with delight and force me to muse on why it is so important to stay in touch with life and love (or at least keep smiling through gritted teeth).
Its appearance is only for the equivalent of a sneeze in time, but the oh-so-visible touch of stamen’s anther of pollen across carpel’s stigma shows how a cactus, even with all its protective thorns, still finds the means to display a lust for life—flaunt it actually—with a delicateness more tender than a multilayered silk petticoat. What does it mean to push past the pricks for this improbable swift existence of exquisiteness. Beauty as brief and as fragile as this needs not only applauding, but mimicking.
Screw the politicians and other thieving bastard bandits who would rob us of our natural heritage. Our lives are much too brief to have our happiness shut down by their deceitful ways. Rise above it all, I say, and not waste another moment being cursed with GOMS. Burst forth past protective armours and grumpy feelings with daily astoundments of joy and yellow tinged or red blushes. Quickly now, start behaving with exaltations of starry eyed wonder because all too soon these human bodies of ours will be pushing up daisies.
Not any time soon, mind you, but the thought of being fodder for a few flowers is rather comforting as I rather like daisies. Better still, I like the notion of actually becoming a daisy or, maybe, a blade of grass bending under the gentle weight of a morning’s moist dew, dropping low to touch and kiss the earth.
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